Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Coordination Of Anions By Noncovalently Bonded Σ-Hole Ligands, Steve Scheiner, Mariusz Michalczyk, Wiktor Zierkiewicz

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Research on σ-hole interactions that include halogen, chalcogen, pnicogen, and tetrel bonding has been accelerating in recent years. These cousins of the H-bond have many similar properties, including geometric preferences and energetics. Most of the work to date has focused on neutral complexes, with less known about these bonds to anions. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge about the complexes of anions with ligands that engage in these sorts of noncovalent bonds. Of particular interest are comparisons with H-bonds, and how the geometry of the fully coordinated complex varies as the number of surrounding ligands increases. A specific …

North American Winter Dipole: Observed And Simulated Changes In Circulations, Yu-Tang Chien, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Yoshimitsu Chikamoto, Steve L. Voelker, Jonathan D.D. Meyer, Jin-Ho Yoon

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

In recent years, a pair of large-scale circulation patterns consisting of an anomalous ridge over northwestern North America and trough over northeastern North America was found to accompany extreme winter weather events such as the 2013–2015 California drought and eastern U.S. cold outbreaks. Referred to as the North American winter dipole (NAWD), previous studies have found both a marked natural variability and a warming-induced amplification trend in the NAWD. In this study, we utilized multiple global reanalysis datasets and existing climate model simulations to examine the variability of the winter planetary wave patterns over North America and to better understand …

Relaxation Of Radiation Effects In Polymers, Alexandra Hughlett Nelson

Physics Capstone Projects

Radiation can create atomic-scale defect states in polymers, leading to changes in their optical, electrical and mechanical properties. Recent studies of polymers have shown that these defect states are sensitive to oxygen or water exposure. It is believed that oxygen cause the number of defect states to decrease and the polymers to revert to their original states. However, the time scale of this regression is not known. This experiment quantified the time that it takes five polymers to recover and the extent of said recovery; polypropylene (PP), low density polyethylene (LDPE), fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), polymide (PI), and poly ether …

Model‐Based Properties Of The Dayside Open/Closed Boundary: Is There A Ut‐Dependent Variation?, David A. Smith, Jan Josef Sojka

All Physics Faculty Publications

The open‐closed boundary (OCB) defines a region of significant transformation in Earth's protective magnetic shield. Principle among these changes is the transition of magnetic field lines from having two foot points, one in each hemisphere, to one foot point at Earth, the other mapping to the solar wind. Charged particles in the solar wind are able to follow these open field lines into Earth's upper atmosphere. The OCB also defines the polar cap boundary. Being able to identify and track the OCB allows study of several components of the geomagnetic system. Among them are the electrodynamics of the geomagnetic field …

Modeling Lake Temperature Response To Climate Change In The Alaskan Arctic, Thomas Balkcom

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis study focuses on simulating lake temperature and ice duration for four lakes at the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research site, near the Toolik Field Station in Alaska. Model projections were driven by the representative global climate model outputs under different carbon emission scenarios. Results show that my simple lake model can reproduce historical lake temperature and ice duration observations, indicating the reliability of the model for future projections. Model projections show that JuneSeptember lake temperatures would increase by 4.3-5.8 °C from the historical period with most progressive carbon emission scenarios, but by 0.7-2.2 °C in the conservative scenarios. Results …

Assessing & Protecting Dark Night Skies In El Morro National Monument, Leslie Kobinsky

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Light pollution is causing the disappearance of dark night skies around the world. In the United States alone, 1/3 of people are unable to see the Milky Way where they live (Ramlagan, 2016). National Park Service sites contain some of the darkest skies in the country. Here at El Morro National Monument, these dark skies are a beautiful and healthy benefit to people in the local community and visitors traveling from afar. El Morro’s current park legislation does not include specific measures of protection for the night sky. This capstone project will create a baseline data set of night sky …

Assessing Beaver Dam Dynamics In The Logan-Little Bear Watershed, Connor Penrod

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This paper seeks to address a knowledge gap concerning how flood events impact beaver dams over time. To address this gap, I took four time-snapshots of beaver dams, mapping them across the Utah portion of the Logan-Little Bear watershed, from 2009 to 2016 to bookend a large flood event in 2011. I assessed dam status (intact, breached, or blown out) for each dam mapped to assess the impact of the large spring runoff on the dam status. Assessing dam status over time allowed me to assess the change in condition over time, from before to several years after, while also …

Deep Reinforcement Learning Pairs Trading, Andrew Brim

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This research applies a deep reinforcement learning technique, Deep Q-network, to a stock market pairs trading strategy for profit. Artificial intelligent methods have long since been applied to optimize trading strategies. This work trains and tests a DQN to trade co-integrated stock market prices, in a pairs trading strategy. The results demonstrate the DQN is able to consistently produce positive returns when executing a pairs trading strategy.

Decomposing The Hamiltonian Of Quantum Circuits Using Machine Learning, Jordan Burns, Yih Sung, Colby Wight

Physics Capstone Projects

Quantum computing is one of the most promising techniques for simulating physical systems that cannot be simulated on classical computers[1]. A significant drawback of this approach is the inherent difficulty in designing circuits that can represent these systems on quantum computers. Every quantum circuit is built out of small components called quantum gates. Each of these gates manipulate the quantum system in a specific way. When used in combination, a finite subset of these gates, the set of universal gates, can be used to construct any possible quantum circuit[2].

Evolution Of The Book Cliffs Dryland Escarpment In Central Utah - Establishing Rates And Testing Models Of Escarpment Retreat, Nicholas R. Mccarroll

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Since the earliest explorations of the Colorado Plateau, geologists have suspected that cliffs are retreating back laterally. Clarence Dutton envisioned “the beds thus dissolving edge wise until after the lapse of millions of centuries their terminal cliffs stand a hundred miles or more back from their original position” when he wrote about the landscape in 1882. While many geologic studies have determined how fast rivers cut down through the Plateau, only a few studies have calculated how quickly cliffs retreat laterally, and geologists have been arguing since the 1940’s what exactly drives cliffs to retreat in the first place. We …

Developing, Adopting, And Executing 100% Net-Renewable Electricity Resolutions At The Local Level, Emily E. Skill

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the absence of national leadership on climate policy, municipalities are adopting resolutions to reduce their carbon footprint and transition to clean energy. However, what leads to successful adoption of these resolutions and how to effectively implement climate goals at the community level needs further exploration. To investigate these questions, this thesis examines the resolutions adopted in Salt Lake City, Park City, and Moab, Utah to transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2032. Data was collected through documents, such as city reports and newspapers, and interviews with government officials, city staff, and community members involved with the resolution process. A …

Temporal Json, Aayush Goyal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a format for representing data. In this thesis we show how to capture the history of changes to a JSON document. Capturing the history is important in many applications, where not only the current version of a document is required, but all the previous versions. Conceptually the history can be thought of as a sequence of non-temporal JSON documents, one for each instant of time. Each document in the sequence is called a snapshot. Since changes to a document are few and infrequent, the sequence of snapshots largely duplicates a document across many time instants, …

Evaluation Of Stream Bank Restoration To Improve Water Quality In A Semi-Arid Stream, Johnathan Neenan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Human watershed activities such as converting land cover to agriculture and livestock grazing have negatively impacted stream water quality worldwide. One such case is Utah’s Upper Sevier River where a loss of woody bank vegetation (reduced shading) and accelerated bank erosion (increased fine sediment inputs) has led to increased stream temperature and water turbidity. As a result, the state of Utah sought to improve water quality conditions using streambank restoration. While commonly recommended and performed, the effectiveness of this sort of restoration has rarely been quantified. Here, I evaluated a restored reach of the Upper Sevier River near Hatch, UT …

A Model Explaining Medusahead Invasion And Novel Targeted Grazing Approaches Of Control, Casey N. Spackman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae (L.) Nevski) is currently one of the biggest threats to rangelands and livestock operations in the Western US. High silica concentrations in medusahead contribute to its invasiveness. I developed a model to explain how silica is involved in the invasion process, and attempted to manipulate silica to increase use of the grass by livestock. Experiments were conducted to determine: 1) whether rotational grazing on established forages of improved nutritional quality would provide supplemental nutrients to increase cattle use of medusahead; 2) evaluate intake of and preference for medusahead treated with a glyphosate herbicide at different rates …

Cost-Effective Synthesis, Bioactivity And Cellular Uptake Study Of Aminoglycosides With Antimicrobial And Connexin Hemichannel Inhibitory Activity, Yagya P. Subedi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Amphiphilic kanamycin is one of the promising class of compounds for the treatment of fungal infections in plants and animal. Factor that lead to the restricting of compounds for commercialization includes, the higher cost of production and poor stability of the compound. However, the new lead, identified from the synthesis and biological testing, can be synthesized on a large scale with a cost comparable to commercial antifungals. The newly reported lead is stable at the acidic and basic conditions. Additionally, this compound has an excellent activity towards Candida auris, a multidrug-resistant superbug.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death …

Wildfire In The West: An Initial Analysis Of Wildfire Impacts On Hydrology And Riverbed Grain Size In Relation To Salmonid Habitat, Natalie J. Gillard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Historically wildfires have been beneficial to forests, however, human developments have encroached on forests when wildfire was artificially suppressed by federal and state agencies. The area burned by wildfire each year has increased twenty-fold in the past three decades. Large, high severity fires pose increased threats to human and aquatic communities within and downstream of the burned area due to post-wildfire effects on flooding and sedimentation. We need to understand the impacts of wildfires to be able to mitigate their damages and to recognize their potential benefits. This research addresses the questions: 1) Do wildfires impact rural and urban economies …

Plug-And-Play Web Services, Arihant Jain

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The goal of this research is to make it easier to design and create web services for relational databases. A web service is a software service for providing data over computer networks. Web services provide data endpoints for many web applications. We adopt a plug-and-play approach for web service creation whereby a designer constructs a “plug,” which is a simple specification of the output produced by the service. If the plug can be “played” on the database then the web service is generated. Our plug-and-play approach has three advantages. First, a plug is portable. You can take the plug …

Power V. Threshold: Near-Channel Morphology Controls Sediment Rating Curve Shape In Coastal Redwood Watersheds, Adam Caspian Nebraska Fisher

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

River sediment is one of the most pervasive pollutants in the world. Excess amounts of fine sediment can reduce water quality, damage stream ecosystems, and harm aquatic life. Both natural and human-caused processes can add sediment to a river, such as tectonic uplift, landslides, and timber harvesting. Therefore, it is important to understand how fine sediment enters and moves through a rive system to inform policymakers and land-managers on effective ecosystem management.

In this study, we determined how the relationship between river flow and suspended sediment changed among watersheds along the North Coast of California. We found a rise in …

Using A Discrete Choice Experiment To Estimate Willingness To Pay For Location Based Housing Attributes, Kristopher C. Toll

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 1993, a travel study was conducted along the Wasatch front in Utah (Research Systems Group INC, 2013). The main purpose of this study was to assess travel behavior to understand the needs for future growth in Utah. Since then, the Research Service Group (RSG), conducted a new study in 2012 to understand current travel preferences in Utah. This survey, called the Residential Choice Stated Preference survey, asked respondents to make ten choice comparisons between two hypothetical homes. Each home in the choice comparison was described by different attributes, those attributes that were used are, type of neighborhood, distance from …

Assessing Amendment Treatments For Sodic Soil Reclamation In Arid Land Environments, Sandra Udy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Plugged and abandoned well pads throughout the Uintah Basin face reclamation challenges due to factors including a harsh climate, invasive species, and high salt loads. Finding ways to alleviate soil sodicity could improve soil reclamation success. Gypsum, sulfur, activated carbon, and Biochar are being applied to improve soil parameters negatively impacted by sodicity, but the direct impact of these amendments on Uintah Basin soils is still largely unknown. The aim of this study was two-fold. (1) Evaluate the effectiveness of gypsum, sulfuric acid, Biochar, activated carbon, and combinations of these amendments in reducing the impact of soil sodicity of the …

Implementation And Effects Of University College Algebra Growth Mindset Structured Assessments In Large Lectures, Hannah Mae Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Recent scientific evidence shows the incredible potential of the brain to grow and change. Students with a growth mindset view errors and obstacles as opportunities for growth. These students welcome challenges and the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Although some university instructors are incorporating growth mindset into their lectures, attitudes, and exams in small classes, the traditional exam method used in large lecture undergraduate mathematics classrooms follows a fixed mindset model. The growth mindset structured assessments developed for this study incorporate a testing center portion (matching, short answer, fill in the blank and free response) with structured rework opportunities, …

The Farm As Place In A Changing Climate: Capturing Women Farmers' Experiences In Idaho, United States And Victoria, Australia, Tagen Towsley Baker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In Australia and the US, women play a vital role in the agricultural sector. However, historically farmwomen’s contributions to agriculture as well as their individual knowledge and social resilience to stressors like climate and climate change have been unrecognized and rendered invisible. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship from geography and the humanities, this dissertation explores the farm as place in a changing climate, drawing on women farmers’ experiences, under three distinct themes: identity, place, and photography. The dissertation research includes three distinct parts. First, incorporating non-fiction writing and photography, I explore my agricultural and religious heritage, as well as familial connections …

Boundaries And Bridges In Rangeland Social-Ecological Systems: Studies Of Collaboration, Innovation, And Information Flow, Gwendŵr R. Meredith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Public rangelands are managed by a mixture of federal, state, and local governments. Often, these groups are charged with managing adjacent lands that are part of the same greater landscape. To do this effectively, communication and collaboration is required. This dissertation examines federal, state, and local agencies’ level of communication through three projects.

The first project examined barriers to agencies adopting management tools from each other. I found that individuals within agencies were mainly staying within their own agency when seeking advice, so individuals were not communicating about tools or their findings across agencies. Furthermore, agency policies and fear of …

Supplemental Material For Cotterill Et Al. 2020: Parsing The Effects Of Demography, Climate, And Management On Recurrent Brucellosis Outbreaks In Elk. Journal Of Applied Ecology., Gavin G. Coterill, Johan T. Du Toit, Paul C. Cross

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Zoonotic pathogens can harm human health and wellbeing directly or by impacting livestock. Pathogens that spillover from wildlife can also impair conservation efforts if humans perceive wildlife as pests. Brucellosis, caused by the bacterium Brucella abortus, circulates in elk and bison herds of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and poses a risk to cattle and humans. Our goal was to understand the relative effects of climatic drivers, host demography, and management control programs on disease dynamics.

Synthesis and applications: Positive serostatus is often weakly correlated with infectiousness but is nevertheless used to make management decisions including lethal removal in wildlife disease …

Halving Iso(7) Supergravity, Adolfo Guarino, Javier Tarrío, Oscar J. Varela

All Physics Faculty Publications

Half-maximal, N = 4, sectors of D = 4 N = 8 supergravity with a dyonic ISO(7) gauging are investigated. We focus on a half-maximal sector including three vector multiplets, that arises as a certain SO(3)_R-invariant sector of the full theory. We discuss the embedding of this sector into the largest half-maximal sector of the N = 8 supergravity retaining six vector multiplets. We also provide its canonical N = 4 formulation and show that, from this perspective, our model leads in its own right to a new explicit gauging of N = 4 supergravity. Finally, expressions for …

Convergence Rates For Empirical Estimation Of Binary Classification Bounds, Salimeh Yasaei Sekeh, Morteza Noshad, Kevin R. Moon, Alfred O. Hero

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Bounding the best achievable error probability for binary classification problems is relevant to many applications including machine learning, signal processing, and information theory. Many bounds on the Bayes binary classification error rate depend on information divergences between the pair of class distributions. Recently, the Henze–Penrose (HP) divergence has been proposed for bounding classification error probability. We consider the problem of empirically estimating the HP-divergence from random samples. We derive a bound on the convergence rate for the Friedman–Rafsky (FR) estimator of the HP-divergence, which is related to a multivariate runs statistic for testing between two distributions. The FR estimator is …

Sampling Methods For Luminescence Dating Of Subsurface Deposits From Cores, Michelle Nelson, Tammy M. Rittenour, Harriet Cornachione

Geosciences Faculty Publications

Study of subsurface deposits often requires coring or drilling to obtain samples for sedimentologic and geochemical analysis. Geochronology is a critical piece of information for stratigraphic correlation and rate calculations. Increasingly, luminescence dating is applied to sediment cores to obtain depositional ages. This paper provides examples and discussion of guidelines for sampling sediment core for luminescence dating. Preferred protocols are dependent on the extraction method, sedimentology, core integrity, and storage conditions. The methods discussed include subsampling of sediment in opaque core-liners, cores without liners, previously open (split) cores, bucket auger samples, and cuttings, under red lighting conditions. Two important factors …

Postmagmatic Tectonic Evolution Of The Outer Izu‐Bonin Forearc Revealed By Sediment Basin Structure And Vein Microstructure Analysis: Implications For A 15 Ma Hiatus Between Pacific Plate Subduction Initiation And Forearc Extension, Walter Kurz, Peter Micheuz, Gail L. Christeson, M. Reagan, John W. Shervais, Steffen Kutterolf, A. Robertson, Kurt Krenn, K. Michibayashi, D. Quandt

Geosciences Faculty Publications

International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 352 recovered sedimentary‐volcaniclastic successions and extensional structures (faults and extensional veins) that allow the reconstruction of the Izu‐Bonin forearc tectonic evolution using a combination of shipboard core data, seismic reflection images, and calcite vein microstructure analysis. The oldest recorded biostratigraphic ages within fault‐bounded sedimentary basins (Late Eocene to Early Oligocene) imply a ~15 Ma hiatus between the formation of the igneous basement (52 to 50 Ma) and the onset of sedimentation. At the upslope sites (U1439 and U1442) extension led to the formation of asymmetric basins reflecting regional stretch of ~16–19% at strain rates of …

An Updated Review Of Atmospheric Mercury, Seth N. Lyman, Irene Cheng, Lynne E. Gratz, Peter Weiss-Penzias, Leiming Zhang

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The atmosphere is a key component of the biogeochemical cycle of mercury, acting as a reservoir, transport mechanism, and facilitator of chemical reactions. The chemical and physical behavior of atmospheric mercury determines how, when, and where emitted mercury pollution impacts ecosystems. In this review, we provide current information about what is known and what remains uncertain regarding mercury in the atmosphere. We discuss new ambient, laboratory, and theoretical information about the chemistry of mercury in various atmospheric media. We review what is known about mercury in and on solid- and liquid-phase aerosols. We present recent findings related to wet and …

Meps Data Assimilation System, Robert W. Schunk, Larry Gardner

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For the current funding opportunity we propose to develop a master system that will enhance the user interface to the MEPS model and enable the scientific community to efficiently use the model. Furthermore, we will build and automate validation tools and improve the efficiency and robustness of the MEPS ensemble averaging scheme. Finally, we will explore the nest step toward a major advancement in MEPS b significantly improving the spatial resolution of one of the data assimilation models to explore meso- and small-scale features.